Sunday, April 6, 2008

This video brings to attention a lot of truths for most post-secondary students today. Education needs to be dragged out of the 19th century and it is making it even more difficult for low-income, at-risk kids to compete. The needed technology and connection is not reaching them.

I hadn’t thought much about myself in this situation until I saw this video and quickly realized how lucky I am. During my entire academic life I have never faced any issues dealing with class sizes and teachers that will or won’t remember my name. Oddly enough however, when I had to sit through lectures with over 200+ people in the same room during my first year in Guelph, I felt more relieved than anything. It gave me a sense of freedom to know that I wasn’t being watched over and in the same respect I found some clarity and space to learn on my own. That being said, I still believe it is important for some kind of close mentorship to take place and this is what our teachers and professors should ideally be doing. Since I am in the landscape architecture program here at the university, I admit I do feel privileged to be taught both theory and practice and have it completely relevant towards a professional career. Money isn’t much of an issue either. The only thing I regret is my apathetic work ethic and habit of procrastination I’ve developed, as a child raised in the 90s with technological distractions. McLuhan was definitely on to something. The generation of students who learned well with a teacher scratching on a chalkboard while sitting in a four-walled classroom has long expired.

Imagine one of your loved ones has just recently passed away in another country and you’re absolutely bogged down with a huge project for your boss or client. You don’t have the time and/or the money to book a flight and get out of the country for a day or two. Would you feel guilty? Distressed?

What if there was another way to witness the funeral that didn’t require you to book a costly flight and take time away?

Wesley Music, a company that specializes on providing music to the bereavement community thinks they’ve got the solution. If people all over the world are communicating and networking in more intimate ways than ever before using the internet, then shouldn’t all distance barricades be broken? With the advent of high speed internet and high resolution cameras, this solution may be a little less than ideal.

But I suppose it should be expected in this age where we are dependant on machines to ease our daily lives. Wesley Music’s idea is to take a funeral, record it live, broadcast it through the internet and have it pay-per-view. I believe this is the type of remediation that we have to get used to. All physical barriers have the potential to be eliminated and be delivered to us electronically.

Coca-Cola has gone through a number of different advertising slogans in its long history. In fact, here’s a list I’ve conveniently taken off the official Coca-Cola company website:

Slogans for Coca-Cola -- 1886-present:1886 - Drink Coca-Cola1904 - Delicious and Refreshing1905 - Coca-Cola Revives and Sustains1906 - The Great National Temperance Beverage1917 - Three Million a Day1922 - Thirst Knows No Season1923 - Enjoy Thirst1924 - Refresh Yourself1925 - Six Million a Day1926 - It Had to Be Good to Get Where It Is1927 - Pure as Sunlight1927 - Around the Corner from Everywhere1929 - The Pause that Refreshes1932 - Ice Cold Sunshine1938 - The Best Friend Thirst Ever Had1939 - Thirst Asks Nothing More1939 - Whoever You Are, Whatever You Do, Wherever You May Be, When You Think ofRefreshment Think of Ice Cold Coca-Cola1942 - The Only Thing Like Coca-Cola is Coca-Cola Itself1948 - Where There's Coke There's Hospitality1949 - Along the Highway to Anywhere1952 - What You Want is a Coke1956 - Coca-Cola... Makes Good Things Taste Better1957 - Sign of Good Taste1958 - The Cold, Crisp Taste of Coke1959 - Be Really Refreshed1963 - Things Go Better with Coke1969 - It's the Real Thing1971 - I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke (part of the "It's the Real Thing" campaign)1975 - Look Up America1976 - Coke Adds Life1979 - Have a Coke and a Smile1982 - Coke Is It!1985 - We've Got a Taste for You (for both Coca-Cola & Coca-Cola classic)1985 - America's Real Choice (for both Coca-Cola & Coca-Cola classic)1986 - Red, White & You (for Coca-Cola classic)1986 - Catch the Wave (for Coca-Cola)1987 - When Coca-Cola is a Part of Your Life, You Can't Beat the Feeling1988 - You Can't Beat the Feeling1989 - Official Soft Drink of Summer1990 - You Can't Beat the Real Thing1993 - Always Coca-Cola2000 - Coca-Cola. Enjoy2001 - Life Tastes Good2003 - Coca-Cola... Real2005 - Make It Real2006 - The Coke Side of Life

Despite the numerous transformations in Coke’s advertising schemes over the century, it’s become obvious that they have continued to focus their slogans to sell “reality” and leisure life; proving Duncombe’s argument of marketing dreams and fantasies. Yes, their campaigns have changed, independent to each, and their media relived to any spectacle one can imagine*, but they cannot let go of what works and ultimately what sells. And they probably know this.From this list, I have also noticed that Coca-Cola has kept to a modest attitude during the very early years of their advertising. I suppose they soon found out that it wasn’t enough to only sell the beverage based on how well it tasted.

*I’m alluding to the sillier and unnecessary projects that Coca-Cola has created or endorsed to draw attention such as the international exhibit of oversized Coke bottles (some over 10 feet tall), and their popular Times Square spectacular of an electric advertising sculpture being one of the largest digital canvases in the world.

Watch this ad and tell me what you see. Does using and editing a pre-existing Coca-Cola ad successful in convincing you? If you have never heard of the Killer Coke campaign, does the sound byte make you curious enough to know more?

The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke is the largest campaign to spread awareness and protest against Coke’s corrupted practices. Its motivation based primarily upon the scandalous murders and kidnappings of hundreds that occurred in Colombia’s bottling plant since 1989. In an act of resolution, the campaign strives to boycott and remove endorsements or contracts with Coca-Cola products in institutions in order to force the company into negotiating an agreement that will protect the rights and safety of workers in their factories. So far, the campaign has influenced a significant number of high schools and universities, whose age range make up the greater demographic of Coke consumers, to further spread the protest. This is the kind of activism that has been yearned for in Danny Schechter’s manifesto about disseminating the big corporations. It is what Stephen Duncombe imagined in the ethical spectacle and the step forward in the bottom-up model of democracy.

“A Marxist tradition sees the media as integrated into the existing economic and political elites and therefore reflecting their interests. The liberal approach sees the media as facilitating social agreement through the dissemination of information and contrary opinion. The classical Marxist view sees one class as manipulating the media's content.”

“[Antonio Gramsci] argued that a social group or class exercised dominance in part by force, but more importantly by consent, by obtaining the consent of the majority. The media thus had a central role in developing public compliance. Political and cultural institutions had a 'relative autonomy' from the economic base.”

“The notion of hegemony combined these notions of force and consent, and rested on a particular set of beliefs and ideas that had broad appeal. Central ideologies are seen as becoming most powerful when they are accepted as common sense, i.e. when they are not seen as ideologies at all. According to Gramsci, we can judge ideology to be effective if it is able to connect with the 'common sense' of the people. The ruling class [in Italy] struggled to retain its hegemony over the proletariat. It formally allowed contestation of ideas, which in fact, through linguistic codes etc, the ruling classes' interests were perpetuated. This approach stressed the media's content.”

Arguably the media is an important site of this battle to establish central and dominant ideas and ways of looking at the world. Must any counter-hegemonic project (socialism, radical democracy, feminism, environmentalism) establish a successful media strategy.”

As I gather, in the Marxist state the dominant class obtains such hierarchy through consent of the majority of people, thereby using the mass media for developing public conformity and obedience. This method is certainly relative to an in-class discussion of Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) being used in ours homes, work places, churches, schools etc. as a tool for cultivating and sustaining the ideologies of the ruling class. Furthermore, Gramsci stresses that the most powerful ideologies were accepted as common sense and thus when they aren’t seen as “ideologies”. If we are all being asked to participate in culture and media in general, then through interpellation we should seek in order to intercede on the ideologies of our hegemonic institutions. What if we ditched our capitalist idealism? Nearly impossible since we are a culture too satisfied with our lives in the moment; obsessing over getting what we want, when we want it. Despite the dilemma we face when we attempt to give up our capitalist grounds, there may be some options left unexplored for whatever reason. “Dominant views are of course open to contestation, and to those who wish to promote counter-hegemony.” Could a step away from our capitalist ideals, such as a communist movement, be suitable to provide a counter-hegemonic alternative?

“Capitalism requires conformity in the workers. Capitalism is one big machine; the workers are just parts. These parts need to be as simple, predictable, and interchangeable as possible. One need only look at an assembly line to see why. Like bees or ants, capitalist workers need to be organized into a limited number of homogeneous castes.”

The capitalist society is one that thrives on constant economic competition which in turn, makes the people who produce the goods and services the ultimate gears of society. From this it is understood that unemployed are the ones outside of the social realm, and not integrated members of society.

In order for something to happen or any kind of productivity, there needs to be conformity. We can look at the signs and symbols we see in our daily lives that indicate worker conformity, including uniforms (to maintain status), unions (to maintain fairness between workers and employers), as well as clubs that encourage similar interests. All of these stimulate a sense of egalitarianism. With these conforming groups there is strengthened communications and the ability to establish goals and even embrace change as a group.

Unfortunately, the resulting effect is workers being repressed to conform.

In American Beauty, Lester sets an example of rebelling against worker conformity when he quits his job, flips off and blackmails his boss. In the article, Heath and Potter express “individuals who resist the pressure to conform therefore subvert the system, and aids in its overthrow”.

Workers of the capitalist society are also concerned about their social standing. They have accepted the values of the ruling class as and will try their worst to achieve them.Our social and economic goals are common, but the ability to obtain these goals is class-dependant. By the ideologies of Willem Bonger, a Marxist criminologist, most people desire wealth, material possessions, power and prestige; however as we know the lower class is less able to achieve these symbols of success.

In No Logo, Naomi Klein knows this concept very well. She tells us how people are fighting over the “new” lofts where she currently lives, as has lived for a while, because they are a highly desired location. And thus want a piece of her status, even if they are “not the genuine article but mass-produced, commercialized facsimiles of it”.

All in all, the notion of capitalist conformity creates an illusion that everyone is equal and that there is no greater divide between wealth, hereditary rank or profession.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Not so surprisingly, what immediately came to mind after reading this headline was Marshall McLuhan’s theories of media as the message, along with the concept of remediation. We have evidently transformed our habits of acquiring news from primary sources like newspapers to television and now the internet. McLuhan emphasizes the characteristics of the medium as the way in which it affects the society. And it is through theses characteristics that that engage the viewer in different ways. Now apply this to the tools used to access web news: computers, laptops, cell phones, PDAs, and more. People are simply more absorbed into an atmosphere where they are able to interact with their medium. Their source of news can now be customized to their liking, including whether they prefer real news or satirical fake news. From drag and drop, copy paste, forward or share, the user is now in control of their news at the tip of his/her fingers and where it goes. However:

“While most people think journalism is important to the quality of life, 64 percent are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities, a We Media/Zogby Interactive online poll showed.”

This statement caught my attention as it linked to what we have discussed in class about the quality of information that floats around the web. I was interested to see that there is a significant amount of people who have also noticed their quality of journalism have decreased. What itches me further is the question of change. Is this group of dissatisfied readers and viewers able to ignite social change for higher standards of journalism?

As if the sudden onset of the greening movement wasn’t already driving panic into the minds of people to be much more cautious of their actions, it’s also being massively exploited by marketing companies. The Onion has created a video in response to Bush’s pledge of creating hybrid engine carriers being used in Iraq, as an environmental initiative. The need to green is spreading worldwide in an attempt to redirect our future away from extreme climate change. Like diet trends, this green movement has been turned into a fad to promote healthy living, losing its focus on what is really at hand. Because its nature reaches you on a personal level, the need to be environmentally keen is a survival necessity. You must take initiative into your own hands to preserve your quality of life!

Robert Braun asks the panel: “Should we be doing more to make the war in Iraq more eco-friendly?” and subsequently awakens the notion of America being ruthless a leader when they can make light of a devastating situation. The war will certainly not cease, but they can make torture more ecologically sound.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

After reading Jamie’s post about Fake vs. Real News, I feel like I should come out to also admit I am not a big politics buff. Don’t worry Jamie, you’re not alone! I too am one of the people who just don’t get it as much as I’d like to. Where I get my news is usually on the internet, through large forums, community websites and word-of-mouth (or should I say word-of-text).

“What is Fark exactly? Fark is what fills space when mass media runs out of news. Fark is supposed to look like news... but it's not news. It's Fark.”

Fark.com is one of my favourite news websites where, very much like Digg.com, hosts a daily batch of news articles and other items from various websites. These are links submitted by Fark users who have then been approved by administrators. They are also placed into categories like Not News (their signature category), Sports, Business, Politics and sub-categories such as Interesting, Amusing, Cool, Strange, Scary, Weird, etc. The list goes on; however, I feel the main focus of this process is to draw out the most entertaining, albeit useless, pieces of the bunch. To this, I fall victim to the youth statistic of preferring infotainment over CNN.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with CNN. Or at least there is yet to be any incriminating evidence against it. It is a so-called reputable news source, free of subjectivity, fair and impartial. Aside from that, it lacks interpretation and active audience participation. Today our youth culture is making the big switch from the formal newsroom to the comedy channels, particularly The Daily Show.

In the Megan Boler reading, we realize that satire is a great method in order to portray contradictions in our skeptical post 9/11 society:

“…because irony turns on the unsaid; it uses the dominant forms of logic to express what is otherwise silenced as dissenting didacticism; it expresses horrors in forms that are palatable; it creates a sense of shared meaning and community by using the unsaid to create a recognition of the dominant culture as misrepresentation."

In The Daily Show, manifested in the tradition of popular news-related television comedies (such as Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” and This Hour Has 22 Minutes), we see such an example of political irony to expose other possible interpretations. While news stations are telling us what things mean, John Stewart is telling us what they really mean. I find it fascinating how a simple aspect like humour can alter people’s perceptions and initiate some sort of large-scale awareness. Was this not mentioned in Boler’s article that even court jesters were banned during troubled times? Furthermore, Jeffrey Jones claims that “…humor offers a means of reestablishing common-sense truths to counter the spectacle, ritual, pageantry, artifice, and verbosity that often cloak the powerful.”

More importantly in a bottom-up model, the basis of satire gives a voice to the people and ultimately, gives them a taste of power.Something I believe should forever survive in our democratic society.

References:

http://www.fark.com/

Megan Boler, "The Transmission of Political Critique after 9/11: 'A new form of desperation'?" <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0603/11-boler.php>

Jeffrey P. Jones, " 'Fake' News versus 'Real' News as Sources of Political Information: The Daily Show and Postmodern Political Reality"<http://www.odu.edu/al/jpjones/fake%20news.pdf>

During the presentation on the Death of Media, Tanya spoke about the illusion of democracy and how often we are blinded by the media. Television shows that claim that they are audience/viewer run when there are ulterior factors that are far more important in its contribution. It had made me think about American Idol and its skeptical campaign Vote for the Worst.

Vote for the Worst(VFTW) is quite self-explanatory. It is dedicated to enticing people into voting for the worst contestant on American Idol. I’ll save some time and give you a link if you want know more: http://votefortheworst.com/about_us

The people behind the website have realized that television producers are not only playing an unfair game but also have made clear their decisions are based off of maximizing their profits. American Idol has never been showcasing the best talent of America, rather it was giving us the most successfully entertaining batch their producers could concoct. Hence, why the audition clips are an essential part of the show.

Schechter describes that profit making has been the primary mission of mega corporations, and their programming is designed to maximize that goal alone. Their method has always been monologue, even through such gimmicks as audience voting and internet chat to create that illusion of viewer involvement. Is this fair? More importantly, when and how are we fighting back? How are we to disrupt this corruption? Will remediation be a step towards saving the imminent death of media? Schechter also tells us that a media and democracy movement is required; a push towards accuracy and fairness, breaking up media monopolies and supporting public broadcasting. Additionally he reminds us to be actively aware and participate in the media. In class we discussed this participatory culture and came up a few methods, such as building a collective intelligence, creating knowledge communities where predictions can be drawn and be used in productive ways.

In response I have since become much more active in social communities online where by spreading knowledge and teamwork, some sort of minor social activism can evolve to a spark to make a change. I refuse to let the onset of mediaocracy eat me alive!

Friday, January 25, 2008

After being showered in all the hype and frazzle dazzle for months now, I had finally found time this past Wednesday to go and catch a late show for Cloverfield.It was great. I enjoyed every bit of it. My friends, however, could have used a barfbag.I'll tread carefully around the topic of Cloverfield as my intentions are not to leak any surprises.

The film's effectiveness and success is a much more interesting discussion and is ultimately in my opinion what separates the making of Cloverfield from the last big box office hit. First of all, it is a production of JJ Abrams the mastermind behind hit TV series Lost and Alias. Think about it, this guy's got awards and trophies spilling out of his pants. Apart from being spearheaded by its creatively famous director, Cloverfield has also been GREATLY exposed through viral marketing. And it's through this method that molded the film to soar as opposed to a regularly advertised film.

"Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence."Taking on it's name, these type of marketing techniques spread like a virus, taking advantage of our vast and diverse online network to rapidly multiply and explode the message to millions across the globe. The origins are simple. It is a modern day word-of-mouth method delivered and enhanced by the speedy network effects of the internet. The most distinguishable aspect of this strategy and one I find most fascinating is the fact that it encourages and facilitates people who receive the message to pass it on voluntarily. This may take a variety of forms such as text messaging, video clips, images, and interactive games... making it very, very evil.

As for Cloverfield its marketing campaign was focused all around mystery, suspense and curiosity, creating the perfect environment for a viral message to grow. As far as I know, its original pre-production website (1-18-08.com) was a hair-pulling teaser. The site contains no text, only interactive photos related to the film that you can pull around and flip over. For months, anxious fans across the world were trying to deduce these photographic clues to assemble together a broken story. Many had come down to different theories and creature lore, initiating further discussion from a larger following. And there's more! Fake company websites, interactive games, film teasers, and a fake newscast video all to further back up the developing plot line and provide extra explanation. As for the film itself, it was well done to satisfy what the viewer should be prepared for, assuming they had seen the trailer that was discreet in every manner but suspense and curiosity. However it was clever enough to leave room for more questions to be raised after the film. Myself and many others definitely had questions and we were starving to get answers. I had spent a fair hour or so right after watching the film, only to rewatch it carefully and do our own research to fill in the missing links of the story.

This is one movie that no doubt earned my praise. It created a huge buzz among online social groups prior to the flick. During the film, it gave hungry viewers a satisfying bite yet still dangled some loose ends in our faces and managed to maintain a flow of discussion long after the details have been spilled. The creepiest part is that we all have done this voluntarily.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

During last Monday's lecture, our instructor Ian had raised some ideas and issues underlining the theory of remediation, and ultimately what itched in my head was not only the memories of old technology reinvented, but also the resulting advantages and disadvantages of new digital media.We are living in a digital age and that's a fact. With our Ipods, wireless high speed internet access and 80 gigs of mp3s(it's actually porn) we reach no boundary. It couldn't be any clearer: the world has become our oyster. The communication of information has gotten so facilitated to the point where the quality and genuineness is threatened. Over information can lead to disinformation. But I digress.Let me switch to the next track on my Ipod.And so I wonder: What sort of issues can be born out of this creamy rich digital lifestyle?Some of you have probably heard about our Canadian government's recent proposed copyright legislation. If you haven't, I encourage you to check out Fair Copyright For Canada

The problem here is that the government wants to introduce a Canadian version of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). This might mean that You and I may no longer be able to (legally) upload the favourite music we purchased to our dear Ipods. You and I may no longer legally be able to burn copies, even as a backup, of our dvds for personal use. Or perhaps recording a television show. The bottom line: They are proposing a type of copyright reform that will infringe on making personal copies.

However uniquely enough, the man behind the growing social outcry Michael Geist has dictated in an interview, when asked why he chose facebook as his medium saying "we live in a digital world of blogging and posting", and not surprisingly it had played a key role in bringing it all together. In the light of social activism, this situation might have been a lot different in the past. For example if you wanted to speak out, you might sign a petition or tell a few friends. Today such options like a facebook group might be the best method to galvanize and rally thousands across the country.

My only curiousity is why is the news media isn't all over this. Or perhaps I'm just not seeing it?